I assume you’re talking about new movie baleen worms, but are you relating the paperback that had a face inside the worm, looking inward at yourself so-to-speak? A little too glans-like for my taste.

I’ve seen jokes about how the sandworms look like an anus. I think that misses the point, when to me the gaping maw looks exactly like an iris and a pupil. Looking into the maw of a sandworm is literally the void gazing back.

They’re not uniform in size.

Maybe I’m missing something, but how is this different from how these sort of shots are usually done? Any color can be used for a “green screen” shot - green is usually the standard because it is so different from the skin and hair tones of a human actor, but it’s possible to use any color as long as it is different…

I often understate temporal distances from the 80s and 90s by a decade. It’s hard for me to process 1984 as 37 years ago, so my brain turns it into 27. “Almost 30 years old” should’ve been “almost 40 years old.” Dang. That’s tough to write.

the dinosaurs in jarrasic park were a weird combo of cgi and puppetry, like they built puppets for the puppeteers to manipulate which would map their motions to a computer model, by the time the later movies came out these guys had made the transition to pure computer models though

Almost 30 years old... You might want to sit down for this...

The lighting from the worms mouth is in the books. The worms are described as basically giant blast furnaces and when they open their mouths there is a rush of stifling hot air and smoke and an ominous red glow.

I’m really hoping that the sequel shows us a sandtrout.

I figure they had quicksand instead, but yeah, it would have been cool having those Harkonnens electrocuted as well.

I was waiting to see how they portayed the lightning with the sandworms arrival and was a bit let down when nothing happened.

This is from IMdb: “The cinematographer used matte backgrounds for the “exterior” shots, painted on massive fabric sheets. This eliminated the need for location filming in an actual desert.”

Wasn’t it more like front projection effects that were used, as Kubrick did in 2001 A Space Odyssey with the ‘Dawn of man’ scenes. I mean those were spectacular when you think about how real they looked and the fact that it was all done in a studio in England, nowhere near the projection background pictured in those sc…

still suits were trash

I actually like Alec Newman in the back half of the mini series. He does not sell the Paul Atreides role, but he nails Muad’dib. Matt Keeslar was one of the two big names they sold this mini series on. You were watching for William Hurt and the guy from Scream 3. (hey, those movies were big at the time...) What we…

This is why things like Netflix and HBO are eating everyone’s lunch. They have the budget, they have the freedoms to do things right. The book should be at least a season of TV, 10-13 episodes. The compression is jarring.

I’m surprised you didn’t mention the special effects in the “Liked” section. Watching this 20 years later, a lot of the effects hold up, and it’s because the production used CGI wisely in a lot of ways. A lot of the desert backgrounds are matte paintings instead of CGI effects, and it shows in how good they still look.

Agree on the things you like, for all the same reasons. I feel less strongly about the things you don’t like. I actually thought some of the ‘cheap’ effects were done for artsy reasons - in some cases it felt like I was watching a play on a stage instead of a TV movie. But this is all a bit of quibbling, I feel.…

because those of us who enjoy it are, for all the reasons you mentioned, maybe not motivated to really promote it.

Have you watched Children of Dune? It gets right most of the same stuff as the first series, but improves upon some of the less good bits. A few parts are recast mostly for the better, but none really for the worst. I feel that Newman gives a better performance in the sequel, and McAvoy is great.